A/N Sad as this is, we have finally arrived at the end of this fic. It had been an absolute blast to write it and once more, immense thanks goes to everybody who has supported me and the story, offering both encouragement and the occasional constructive criticism. Kisses and hugs for all of you wonderful people!

Early morning when the sun only just peaked over the horizon and long before the children rose, Kili helped his brother go outside the cave for a breath of fresh air and to assess their situation. Not that the air was particularly fresh since the ground was covered with all of the orkish corpses from yesterday, making the brothers wonder how to deal with them. It wouldn't be a good idea to let the dwarflets play around the prone forms but on the other hand, the corpses sent quite a clear message to anybody else that might consider attacking them. Then again, what if another band of orks went by and decided to avenge their fallen brethren? Still, even if they wanted to get rid of the foul smelling bodies, how to do it? Fili would be of little help and there's only so much Kili could do on his own. However, before they could reach a final decision, screams echoed from the cave and ignoring the pain of their own injuries and the fatigue of the last few days, the brothers quickly ran back.

The sight that awaited them once they entered practically pushed tears into their eyes. There on the ground, eleven very much adult looking dwarves and one adult hobbit lay in a heap. They were mostly naked for the adjusted clothes were suddenly too small and tore under the pressure of the transformation and seemed to be unconscious for now. Conscious or not, Fili and Kili felt like singing and promptly hugged each other all the while laughing maniacally. It was like that that Thorin saw them once he fluttered his eyelids open. Years of training had caused that he noticed many things quickly even upon waking up although there was no way for him to put the pieces together.

His nephews appeared to have lost their minds as they jumped and twirled around, everybody else around him was slowly waking up and noticing that they were naked, exchanging confused looks before the two clearly delirious brothers jumped onto Thorin and hugged him tightly. Looking positively alarmed, Thorin turned to Balin for some sort of help but received none. Patting their quivering backs gingerly, Thorin attempted to utter words of comfort. They fell onto deaf ears.

"You're back, you're back! All of you! Back!"

Their babbling confused the others greatly, had they been missing? None of them could remember, as a matter of fact, none could remember anything past the supper Bombur had prepared. The two brothers continued screaming happily, holding onto their uncle and trembling with laughter and tears. Trying to shake Fili into some semblance of coherency, Thorin took a good look at him for the first time. Fili's hair was, well, Thorin didn't know of a word or sign in Westron, Khuzdul or Iglishmek to describe it fittingly. There were flowers and leaves and a twig or two in the positively sloppy braids and pulling one blossom from the blond mane, Thorin was assaulted by a mental image that wouldn't go away. Gasping as the memory ran through his mind, he opened his eyes wide and demanded to know what in Durin's beard had happened.

Words spilling out of the brothers in rapid succession as they talked over each other in their excited haste to explain, Thorin managed to catch the gist of it thanks to years of practice with the two. His company had been turned into children, presumably because of something they ate, all except Fili, Kili and Gandalf. From that point on, his nephews had to take care of them which clearly involved several incidents, least of all which was an orkish skirmish. Sending Dwalin to look outside to confirm and to check up on their ponies, Thorin gave his nephews a closer look and noticed some of their wounds. Immediately, orders had been barked at the rest of the dwarves to dress and to check up on his nephews in case they needed any medical attention.

By the time Fili was flat on his back with Oin inspecting the stab wound, Dwalin returned and confirmed their story, giving Thorin the final count of orkish corpses littering the camp which made the leader's eyes bulge. By all rights, they should be dead by now even if his nephews talked enthusiastically about how the children versions of all the dwarves and Bilbo helped them when things looked the worst, and how, thankfully, stupid the orks were to attack in waves rather than together. Well, at least they were all safe now, until the next unexplainable catastrophe came of course because clearly this group was cursed or something. But even a cursed group gets a respite occasionally and Thorin was happy to hear that the ponies were all accounted for so they didn't have to worry about travelling on foot.

He was about to request a thorough description of everything that had happened since the transformation when they heard the unmistakable voice of Gandalf outside of the cave. Fili and Kili exchanged a look, the bastard had the gall to be singing! Sounding way too cheerful, he yelled for Fili and Kili, exclaiming excitedly that he knew of the cure now, that all that was needed was to wait. The moment he entered the cave, he crashed into the ground under the combined weight of the raging brothers who were screaming obscenities in all of the languages they knew that made even the rowdiest of the other dwarves blush and Thorin wonder where exactly his nephews picked such language up.

It took Gloin, Dwalin and Bifur to tear Fili away while Bofur, Bombur, Oin, Dori and Nori were needed to subdue Kili; Gandalf appeared mildly scared as he looked upon the Durins. He would have put on his usual mask of annoyance at the apparent lack of awe at his discovery, but he had always known that all that was needed was to wait the transformation out and proudly ran away while he still could. He also made sure to return only once he was positive that everybody would be back to their normal age, not that he would admit it out loud of course. If anybody asked, he painstakingly researched the problem and ran back as soon as he found out.

Promising not to attack the wizard again, Fili and Kili had been let go but they still made sure to glare at Gandalf with pure venom in their eyes as they had been led back to the bedrolls to be treated for their injuries. Thorin decided that it wouldn't be wise to ask them to recount all that had taken place right now and occupied himself by ordering the others to take care of the orks outside as he questioned Gandalf on any possible side effects. The wizard reassured him that there shouldn't be any and that the memories of the last few days shall come to everybody within a short time.

A relief as Thorin truly wanted to know what had transpired, especially once he noticed that his nephews passed out on the bedrolls in sheer exhaustion now that everything was back to normal and the adrenaline of the good news and Gandalf's returned faded out. None of the dwarves had been able to wake them up until the following morning, not that they had the heart to try too hard as the fatigue was clearly visible in the youthful faces. Thorin simply decided that they would stay for a day more to give his nephews time to gather their strength and everybody agreed.

Once the company was back on the road, although moving at an unhurried pace since the brothers were rested but hardly healed, everybody's spirits began improving once more and soon, the dwarves found the transformation funny. Gandalf had been right of course, even if some memories only came back as little snippets that hardly made any sense and usually they were completely out of order to make things even more confusing. However, one particular memory assaulted Thorin as he heard one of the dwarves slap another one on the back. No, surely not... at once he was swept back and could practically feel every single time Fili's hand descended on his behind as his nephew, his nephew scolded him. Halting his pony in its tracks which almost caused several dwarves to crash together, Thorin turned around with murder in his eyes and yelled out.

"FIIIIILLLIIIIIII!"

His voice carried through the forest loudly enough to make birds in an impressive radius fly away in fright and everybody in their company jump, especially the dwarf whose name had been yelled out who only needed one look at his uncle to put two and two together about what might have caused such an outburst. Ordering the others to go ahead now, Thorin jumped off his pony and strode over to the blond dwarf. However, before he reached him, another memory assaulted his mind, this one involving Fili's bowl of food and a big bug held in Thorin's chubby fingers. It was shortly followed by a glimpse of him throwing heaps of ants onto Fili's clothes, swiftly followed by the image of a rock leaving his hand as it sailed towards the blond's head. By the time he stopped before Fili, Thorin's eyes were wide with something different than anger, the brothers would even consider it shame.

"Erm, Fili, I..."

Neither nephew dared to speak and break the moment.

"I, um... I'll pretend I don't remember the spanking if you pretend I didn't do any of the other stuff?"

It was blatantly obvious just how painful and disgusting every single word that came out of Thorin's mouth tasted and knowing that declining would be way more hassle than it was worth, Fili nodded his head in agreement. Both turned to Kili, he did stay with his brother intent on protecting him from their uncle to the best of his abilities, who just shrugged his shoulders and grinned at them now that he knew his brother wouldn't get killed. He could live with not being able to retell the stories publicly so long as he could keep the memories, even if he had a feeling their mother would want to hear every single dirty detail to be able to tease her brother endlessly.

When they joined the rest of the company, Thorin was unwilling to even look at his heir but since the youth seemed unharmed and his brother was smiling broadly enough to split his lips, they relaxed. And if all of them remembered the way Fili led his struggling uncle into the forest before wails and smacking could be heard, well, none were stupid enough to say anything to Thorin, even if some of them occasionally shared conspiratory smirks behind their leader's back. Not that anyone had much room to talk though as memories of everything gradually came back to them. For a few days, no one was able to look the Durins fully in their eyes for more than a second, despite all of the reassuring that it was ok, that the events were simply childish mischiefs and if anybody could understand those, it was Kili and Fili.

However, that wasn't the only situation when one of them had trouble facing somebody else. While the other dwarves would tease one another mercilessly about what they had done once the initial shame wore off, Thorin and Bilbo made sure to stay away from each other as much as possible, the instances when they were closer than three dwarves apart far too awkward to deal with. It hadn't exactly been a secret, and probably not even a surprise, that there wasn't much love lost between the two as they journeyed. However, both could clearly remember how well they had clicked as children and how much fun it was to spend time together to conspire. Thorin in particular had been mortified as those memories came back and Bilbo himself was lost in thoughts as he pondered what it could mean for them. Gandalf simply observed with a wide grin on his face all the while making sure there were several dwarves between him and the once again youngest brothers who still glared his way; now that he had heard most of the events following his departure, he didn't feel safe in the least.

It wasn't until another strike of bad luck fell upon the company that things started to improve. At first it had looked grim as the ceiling of the cave they stayed in for the night managed to collapse but once they found out that besides a few bruises nobody was hurt, everybody relaxed. Well, almost everybody. Nori and Dori had been outside when it happened and worked almost frantically to rescue their brother, even if he claimed that he was ok; Oin and Gloin had been with him and made sure the youth didn't get hit by any falling rocks. Bifur, Bofur and Bombur were startled but ok in their own section and putting their mining experience to good work, they began to clear their way out. Balin and Dwalin were trapped together and all but sniggered once they realized who was caved in with whom. Fate would have it that Thorin was trapped with Bilbo while the younger Durins ended up with Gandalf.

Deciding to come to the wizard's aid first, before he was beyond rescue, the dwarves worked relentlessly. They had never found out exactly what had happened to Gandalf but the fact that the wizard looked as uneasy as he did and that the brothers looked smug beyond belief left little to doubt if anything happened at all. Fili and Kili were the sons of Dis and nephews of Thorin and since all the dwarves had bore witness to the wrath of the siblings, none of them would have traded with Gandalf for all of the riches of Erebor. But at least Fili and Kili were no longer glaring at the man, even if Gandalf would have preferred the alternative.

Pretending to work on rescuing the final members of their party, Balin instructed the dwarves to give their leader and burglar some more alone time to talk things out. Once Balin declared the time was up, it took barely a few minutes to get them out; the fact that neither commented on it clearly showing that they did in fact work things out. The words exchanged between them had never been publicly recounted but ever since then, Thorin had been less harsh on the hobbit, as a matter of fact, he was the Thorin equivalent of friendly towards him. For his part, the hobbit seemed less intimidated by the dwarf and would speak up if he believed Thorin was wrong about something earning everybody's respect.

All in all, with wounds healed and new friendships blooming, the company went on their way, emphasising to Ori to write the adventure down with mild, let's say, adjustments.